The Literary Bible
Frank Kermode has reviewed David Rosenberg's new "Literary Bible" in the NYTimes Sunday Book review, although published on New Year's Eve. It is a fairly interesting review, and it helps that Kermode is a good writer in his criticism of the book. First off, the title itself sounds a bit pompous to me. Referring back to the "Book of J," a book that includes Rosenberg's earlier translations of "J" with Harold Bloom's commentary, I would agree with the general spirit of the assessment of "J" as... a sublime writer, an “uncanny” writer, among the greatest of all writers. She was a “strong” poet — not a religious writer, any more than Shakespeare was. Indeed, she was a comic writer whose powerful and eccentric character, more Kafka than Moses, has been obscured by clerical interpreters in the 3,000 years since she wrote. Part of Rosenberg’s task was to produce a style of translation that might fairly represent the rocky magnificence...